Two Months before the Accident
JANUARY 1983
They had planned the second murder for the last Monday of the month.
On that afternoon, they stood on the corner of 10th and Spruce Streets carrying shopping bags filled with the necessary tools: Tragedy and Comedy, latex gloves, their handguns, and the same velvet scarf they had used with Ronald Lester.
News of Mr. Ronald’s death shocked the Main Line and certain segments of the city proper. Imagine a man of his stature and wealth, his history of philanthropy and civic engagement, ending it all with a bathrobe belt, as undignified as it was tragic. He must have suffered financial setbacks in recent years, or grown despondent after his divorce, or become estranged from his children, or succumbed to a secret malaise. How disturbing for a delivery man to have found him three days later, smelling the body even before he reached the door. At his funeral, old friend Donald Lawson, the Donald half of the RonDon, shared a few words: “Wherever Ronald is, he’s making that world work for him. What he thought, was. What his spirit feels, is.”
In Jude’s preliminary research, which entailed staking out the house for two weeks, she discovered that Mr. Donald had a girlfriend who occasionally spent the night—usually Wednesday, sometimes Thursday, but so far never a Monday. He also hosted a group of men on Tuesdays—for what, she didn’t know. This evening he should be alone.
They needed to shake up their approach, differentiate this death from Mr. Ronald’s. Another ambush would be unwise. Kat would not sweetly deliver a few lines before Jude made her move. They had to be patient and sly. They had to wear their masks: What if Mr. Donald rescheduled his group to Monday, forcing them to flee before completing the job? They had one hour to let every scenario, good and bad, tumble through their minds.
Kat huddled closer to her, shivering. All morning and afternoon it had snowed, the frothy piles not yet marred by dog piss or soot, and the wind’s unrelenting shriek was the sound of a woman mourning alone. People passed, paying no attention. She and Kat could run screaming down the street waving Mr. Ronald’s skull and no one would gaze in their direction. No one had time for anyone else’s problems. There was no benefit in getting involved. Jude loved this about the city, the comforting anonymity, the aversion to superfluous connection.
“Let’s start walking,” Jude said. “Talk to me. Act like we’re having a normal conversation.”
Kat stepped over a puddle, gripping Jude’s arm. “It’s hard to have a normal conversation when you’re being ordered to. What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything! The weather! What you ate for breakfast! The size of your shoes! Help me out here.”
“You’re doing great,” Kat said. “Keep going, we’re almost there.”
“Weather, weather, weather, shoes, shoes, breakfast, breakfast, variables, variables, possible wrinkles,” Jude said. They were almost inside. They were almost inside and they didn’t know what or who might come in after them. Jude bent over and pretended to tie her shoe, fishing the key from her sock. The key had been a gift from Genesis, copied from the original years ago, when they all lived at the row homes and Gen was still alive, doing everything Jude asked.
“We’re clear,” Kat said. “No one is even threatening to look at us.”
With a turn of the key and a push from Jude’s shoulder, they were inside.
Mr. Donald’s home was sparse and sleek, the bare minimum, save for his photographs along the walls, many of them self-portraits: the limp silver hair, the lantern jaw, the nose long and crooked as a beckoning finger. The shelves were absent of trinkets that might shatter during a struggle. Against the opposite wall stood a reclining couch made in the current decade. It was an obnoxious, hulking thing, done in gold vinyl and wide enough to accommodate two people, with a beverage holder built into one arm. It faced a teak stand holding a television set and small collection of books. Jude glanced at the spines: Your Erroneous Zones; The Teachings of Don Juan; Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. She heard a buzzing noise behind her and turned to find Kat sprawled across the recliner, her body quaking.
“This thing actually vibrates,” she said. “I’m a little disturbed.”
“Did you touch a button without gloves on? Wipe it off and stop playing around—he will be home in forty-five minutes.”
“Chill pill, please. It will take me two seconds to wipe it down.” She swiped the button with the edge of her sleeve.
“Move over,” Jude said. “Let me see behind it.” She appraised the couch from the side, noting how the curved spine created a gap, cresting up and out like a wave. “We could fit behind this thing, don’t you think?”
“Easily,” Kat said.
Jude retrieved four latex gloves from the bag and gave a pair to Kat. They maneuvered themselves between the recliner and the wall; the space was just wide enough to conceal them both. “We’ll have to wait here until he gets home, starts drinking, and passes out. This way we can leverage him from behind.”
“There’s no closet?” Kat asked. “I’m going to cramp back here.”
“No, just a coat rack near the kitchen. The perils of an old house. We need to get the tub ready and hurry back down.”
The second floor functioned as a sort of photography studio, with various cameras and tripods and black screens and the umbrella contraption that Jude could not look at for longer than a second. She turned on the bathtub and checked her watch: 5:35.
“What’s more excruciating?” Kat asked. “Watching water rise or watching it boil?”
Jude ignored her. Her mind was entrenched in calamitous scenarios. If he walked in the door now, they’d jump from the bedroom window and land on concrete—a twenty-foot drop with no shrubbery to soften their fall. They’d likely break their legs or, at the very least, bust an ankle or knee, which would hinder a quick getaway. Not to mention that their equipment was stashed by the recliner. Nothing in the bags could be traced to her or Kat, but they would be clear evidence of an invasion. Mr. Donald would alert the police, an investigation would ensue, Mr. Ronald’s suicide might be reconsidered as a murder.
Slowly, slowly, the water level rose; Jude estimated it had reached eight inches. It would have to be enough for now. She nudged Kat and they started back downstairs, the old pine staircase creaking with every step. With each passing second Jude expected to hear the lock turn and the door open.
“Turn around, Comedy,” she said, and tied Kat’s mask.
Jude was too afraid to speak as Kat returned the favor, transforming her into Tragedy. Her heart and stomach seemed to merge, both fluttering, both roiling.
“Relax,” Kat said.
Jude stabbed Kat’s side with an elbow. “Stop talking now,” she said. Her watch read 5:53. Mr. Donald would be home any moment. She took a deep breath and willed her body to stay still inside its skin.
Seven minutes later, at exactly six o’clock, Jude heard the slide of a key, the click of a lock. A light flicked on.
“Do you want a drink?” Jude heard him ask.
He was not alone.
Kat gripped her arm, the nails sinking into Jude’s skin. Silently she pleaded with her sister not to make another move.
“Definitely,” a woman said.
Jude closed her eyes to sharpen her ears and everything quadrupled in volume. Mr. Donald let out a gusty sigh. A zipper made its shivery sound. Heavy steps thudded toward the kitchen. The sound of ice clinking and liquid pouring was absurdly amplified; Jude heard a hailstorm, a waterfall. On his way back, Mr. Donald turned on the television. “Kiss my grits,” Flo quipped. Canned laughter sounded like a roar inside an amphitheater. The scratch of the woman’s clothing against vinyl was a hundred records being stopped midplay.
Mr. Donald joined her, making the vinyl scratch again. Jude’s body coiled tighter into itself. Kat was right; here came the cramping. A spasm galloped up her calf. She heard wet suction sounds, an army of plungers adhering and releasing, and realized they were kissing. Kat’s hand clamped around her arm. Bile surged in her throat. She tried to coax it back down without making any hint of a noise.
There was a pause, a shifting, a freight train of panicky thoughts: What if they are about to have sex? What if she gets on top and is high enough to peek over the crest of the recliner and see us? We can’t hurt an innocent person. We can’t have an outsider involved at all. If she sees us we will chop and kick and punch our way to the door as fast as possible, all the while trying to keep our masks on.
She fought to keep her breath regular and silent. Her heart was a pinball inside her chest, shooting, spinning, jostling.
“Mmmmm,” Mr. Donald murmured. “Can you stay?”
“You know I’d love to, babe,” she said, “but the sitter’s leaving soon.”
Jude let out a tiny exhalation.
“Call her,” he said. “I’ll cover the extra hours.”
Jude sucked in her breath.
“You know I wish I could, but she has plans tonight and can’t stay longer.”
She let herself exhale again, and felt Kat sink alongside her.
Mr. Donald and the woman pushed themselves up from the recliner.
“We didn’t even get a chance to try the massager,” he said.
“Next time. Soon.”
The open door let in a whoosh of wind and cold, and then Mr. Donald believed he was alone again. Jude turned to Kat, and in that tiny sliver of space tried to mime her thoughts. Back to the original plan: Wait until he passes out. Then you put him in a chokehold while I face him with the gun. Kat nodded; she understood.
Jude knew that her sister did not want to wait, which is why she herself needed to hold the gun. They could not risk Kat pulling the trigger and making a mess Jude might not be able to clean.
Mr. Donald settled back into the recliner with his drink. “Who you calling crazy, honky?” asked George Jefferson. Sweat stung Jude’s eyes. Ice cubes slid against the glass and she counted three gulps. Finally he was getting down to the business of knocking himself out. He got up again, and this time Jude heard slow footsteps up the stairs. Kat poked her and mimed popping pills. Jude folded her hands, miming prayer. Her ass felt like it had fallen asleep and her foot was close behind, tingling and halfway to numb. The stairs creaked again, signaling his descent. Jude heard a rattling in the kitchen, the scrape of glass against a counter; he was bringing the bottle with him.
She could not tell how long they sat there in the gap between the recliner and the wall, listening to Mr. Donald swallow and belch. Thirty, sixty, ninety minutes, who knows? She did not dare move. She cringed every time Kat readjusted herself. Mr. Donald farted. Kat’s shoulders shook; of course her sister would laugh, even in this moment, when they were so ready. One more gulp, another belch, and he began to snore, a snarled knot sound coming from the bull’s-eye of his chest.
They looked at each other: Now. Slowly they lifted themselves from the space, Jude gripping her gun, Kat making her arms into a noose. Jude crept to the front of the recliner, facing him, gun aimed.
It was time.
She watched as Kat wrapped her arms around Mr. Donald’s neck. If he had been trained as Kat was, he would know to raise one shoulder and thrust the other down to weaken her grip. He might try to loop an arm over his head and spin, setting up to confront her head on, to pull her from her hiding spot and kick her in the groin. He would certainly push his chin down in order to breathe. But Mr. Donald did none of these things, and instead his glasses fell from his eyes, and his mouth burbled a splash of puke, and his head went slack inside her grip.
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” Jude whispered.
Kat shook her head. “No, but just about.”
“Good. We need to get him upstairs.”
Jude pocketed her gun. She gripped Mr. Donald’s torso as Kat hoisted his legs.
Together, gently, they lowered him to the floor and maneuvered him to the bottom of the stairs. They developed a system: Jude hoisted his shoulders while Kat lifted his legs, taking a step at a time, hoist and lift, hoist and lift, his ass the only part of him skimming the wood. He grew heavier with each hoist and her throat had gone dry. The Tragedy mask clung to her sweaty skin.
“Give me a few seconds,” she told Kat. “I need to breathe.”
She doubled over, hands on her knees, head hanging, and at that moment Mr. Donald’s eyes flung open and he began to buck against the stairs. He grasped one of Jude’s ankles and yanked, whisking her own body out from under her. He kicked at Kat’s grasping hands. She saw Kat reach for her gun and aim it at Mr. Donald’s head.
“Don’t shoot!” Jude shouted, and the words reeled him back up to sitting. She lunged again, wrapping her arms around his neck, calibrating the pressure precisely, easing him toward the end but restraining herself just enough; he needed to die in the water. His breath thinned: a wheeze, a puff. She took off her glove long enough to press a finger against his neck, finding his slushy pulse.
“Still alive,” she said, relieved.
They resumed their hoisting and lifting. At the top of the stairs they stripped him, piece by piece, and Jude dissected him in her mind: His arm is just an arm, his foot a foot, his legs are legs, his torso is a torso, his thing—oh god, his thing—is really just a thing, and now he is almost just a body, a limp collection of bones and skin and rotting organs that will never function again. Together they positioned him by the tub and Kat, still gloved, turned on the faucet; the jets released the water into bubbly spirals. “Poor Donald Lawson,” they would say. “Got a bit too sauced and drowned in his own luxury tub.” One more hoist and lift, and his body sank to the bottom of the tub.
With her own gloved hand, Jude threw off her mask. Let him see her now. Let him know that she is alive, not just alive but a beast—an indomitable monster that he helped to create.
“Now,” Jude said, and sat down on the toilet to watch.
Kat cupped Mr. Donald’s head and pushed him down. His eyes flipped open and widened, darting like minnows in their sockets; his legs spasmed into terse and feeble kicks. He gasped and gasped, and the bubbles popping around his open mouth would in any other context seem joyful and lively. What shape is the water? Jude thought. The only prison is the one in your mind. What you think, is.
Kat pressed until his limbs went still, and pressed another few moments just to make sure.
Two down, one to go.